How to play
SNAKE ARENA is a snake brawl on a dark sea, with glowing, bioluminescent snakes. You share a round patch of water with 24 computer snakes, and the goal is to grow as long as you can.
Your snake steers towards the mouse cursor. You can also turn with A and D or the arrow keys. Hold the left mouse button, Space, W or Up to SURGE: you go twice as fast, but you shed length as orbs while you do.
Eat the glowing orbs to grow. Most are small, but now and then a bigger, brighter one is worth four times as much. The one big rule: any head that touches another snake's body dies and bursts into orbs. That includes yours. You also die if you leave the arena's pink ring.
When you die, a card shows your length, how many snakes you devoured, your best length and the pearls you earned. Press Space or Enter, or use the button on the card, to go again straight away.
Tips and strategy
- Your body is your weapon. You cannot bite other snakes. Instead, get your body in front of their head so they run into it. Surge ahead of a rival and curl across its path. If a snake dies on your body, the kill is yours.
- Use your safe start. For the first two seconds of a run your snake blinks and cannot be killed by touching another body. Use it to get clear of any crowd you spawn near.
- Feast after a crash. A snake that dies drops about three quarters of its length as orbs along where its body was. Be nearby to sweep them up, but watch out, because every other snake wants them too.
- Big snakes turn slowly. The thicker a snake grows, the wider its turns. That works both ways: a giant cannot dodge a quick cut across its nose, but as you grow you need to start your own turns earlier, especially near the ring.
- Know who is hunting you. Computer snakes that are bigger than you, or not much smaller, will try to cut in front of your head and may surge to do it. Small snakes mostly just eat. Give the big ones room.
- Surge sparingly. It costs length every second you hold it, and it costs more the bigger you are. You also cannot surge at all once you are very short. Use it to escape or to set up a cut-off, not to cruise around.
- Your best length is what pays. Pearls are worked out from the longest you got during the run, not your length when you died, so a late, risky surge does not cost you pearls.
What's in it
One open arena with a live leaderboard of the six longest snakes and your own place in the field, a minimap, and 24 computer snakes with made-up sea names. When one dies, another soon swims in to take its place, so the arena stays full.
Milestones pop up as you grow: Glowing at 50, Luminous at 120, Radiant at 250, Abyssal at 500, Leviathan at 1,000 and Elder Tide at 2,000.
At the end of a run you earn pearls: your length divided by five, plus five for each kill. Pearls add up over every run and raise your rank: Plankton, then Krill at 50, Shrimp at 150, Eel at 350, Anglerfish at 700, Siphonophore at 1,200 and Leviathan at 2,000. They also unlock five skins on top of the starting Lantern Eel: Coral Ribbon at 50 pearls, Toxin Worm at 150, Ember Siphon at 350, Void Violet at 700 and the rainbow Prism Leviathan at 1,200. Pearls are never spent, so a skin stays yours once you reach it.
Behind the game
Every snake, yours included, follows the same rules: the same speed, the same surge, the same turning. The computer snakes make a new decision a dozen or so times a second. They look for the most valuable orb nearby, preferring ones ahead of them, or pick a rival that is smaller than them or close in size and aim at a point just ahead of its head to cut it off. Before turning they test a handful of directions and avoid any that would run them into a body or the ring, which is why they swerve away when you close in.
Orbs near your head are pulled in towards you, so you do not need to touch each one exactly. A snake's body gets longer and thicker as it eats, which makes a big snake both a wide wall and a slow turner.
The glow is the whole look: translucent jelly-like body segments with pulses of light that run down the body and speed up when a snake surges, glowing orbs, drifting specks of marine snow, and water with moving caustics and a pool of light around you.
Questions
Do I need an account?
No. Your best length, pearls and chosen skin are saved in your browser.
Are the other snakes real people?
No, they are all computer players. It is a single-player game.
Can I play on a phone?
Yes. Touch and drag on the water to steer towards your finger, and hold the SURGE button to speed up.
How do I change my skin?
Go back to the menu from the end-of-run card and pick a skin there. Tapping a locked skin tells you how many pearls it needs.
Is it violent?
No. A crashed snake bursts into glowing orbs.
Does it flash?
There is a pink flash over the screen and some screen shake when you die.